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Europa Universalis IV: Kirishitan Japan

At the end of my last post on my adventures in EUIV, I was getting ready to embrace Christianity from Europe in my Japan that I knew couldn’t stay Shinto once the Europeans found me and started influencing me with their strange god who died on a cross. I had vassalised Korea, Sulu and Chodynt and given them most of my non-Japanese provinces so that there was little chance of Christianity starting somewhere that wasn’t Japan, which was just what I had heard. Unfortunately, releasing Korea back into the wild had given them Jeju Island, part of the Japan region, so I had thought the achievement would have to wait until I could integrate Korea back into my country. Also, I’d lost control of my country to the Clergy and couldn’t get their influence under 60%, I had wanted to get rid of the disaster, but it turns out I was lucky not being able to, the disaster worked in my favour as the rebels spawned quicker.

This is what I wanted to talk about, not long after I posted my last post, I went back into the game and had one of the more intense sessions of EU4 I remember. The clergy were in control, I was still not at the tech level I wanted, my army was split up, some of it in the New World conquering natives, the other half moving to Sakhalin (as despite my want to stop Christianity starting on the mainland, Manchu was laughably weak and begging for invasion), and then Christianity arrived. In Owari, so on Japan, which was good. My plan to let the rebels fire and siege down my provinces, converting it to Catholic while my army sat in my vassal’s territory was looking good.

Or it would have been perfectly fine if Ming, who had supported Sulu’s independence, didn’t use that exact moment, as the Catholic Zealots fired and had their first stack get to work, to declare a war on me for the independence of my subjects. I was having to deal with rebels, naval invasions of Ming forces and keeping my vassals down all at the same time and it was hairy at times, they managed to siege down half of Japan before I could get to them. Thankfully I had a rather strong navy and managed to limit the amount of landings, trapping half of the Ming forces on Japan, leading for several hilarious opportunities to stack wipe them and make them stumble into rebel armies, which just kept getting more and more numerous. I had won the war against Ming for the most part so moved into his land, and got the peace deal I wanted. During this war, I got Blockader, the most popular achievement I hadn’t yet got, for moving my fleet into Korea Bay, and not long after I got Combined Arms, a Rights Of Man basic achievement for getting my admiral and general to have a trait. And the clergy were curtailed and finally, things were back to normal, although Korea had started a separate war against Manchu that I took the lead on, gave Korea the cores they had and took most everything else for myself. Additionally I had a greedy ruler so picked up All That Is Thine Shall Be Mine for peacing out Manchu.

Enforcing religion on my subjects lost me all the liberty desire I’d gained in favour by winning the independence war but it was worth it, as Korea converted Jeju and I had the achievement I was doing this campaign for, Kirishitan Japan. Sadly, no more achievement reasons to play as Japan for me now, add another one in the future Paradox. Still, I continued on for another hundred years as colonising and vassal managing and killing hundreds of thousands of Ming soldiers as my provinces continued to switch to Catholicism was pretty fun. Once I’d integrated Korea and Sulu though, I felt like the campaign had to end. I like blobbing but directionless, goal-less blobbing is less fun, I’m not going to conquer the world with this so I think I’m going to leave it here. Manchuria and all the nations in Mongolia were no challenge with their awful tech, same with the native Indonesians, Ming were more of a challenge as they’d picked up several tech levels and had a huge mercenary pool, which I tested in two bloody wars where I sent them into debt to pick up small parts of their lands including Beijing and the area around Korea Bay.

I’ve picked up an alliance with France but I don’t know if I’d go anywhere any more interesting in the next 150 years. I’m also itching for a new campaign now. I think, despite the similar colour, it’s going to be Georgia trying for Georgia On My Mind. I’m picking that as I feel like that achievement should be got as Georgia and it would be quite a challenge, if not suicidal. We won’t know until we try. Until then, the year is 1657, and here is the result of my Kirishitan Japan campaign. (with Minatochi – Australia, Arasuka – Alaska, and Yuuhitani – California as colonial subjects)